bouring barony, shall vote for eight members of parliament. Is it a plan to enlarge the basis of legislation, by encreasing the number of the constituent body? No, Sir, it diminishes, it contracts, it strikes off thousands and tens of thousands of your electors; it disfranchises every freeman in the nation who does not hold by birth, servitude, marriage, or trade. It disfranchises every freeholder under 20. per annum, who does not reside. It demolishes the whole tribe of potwallopers; men entitled to vote in right of residence. (the freest title the constitution knows) are to be extinct, unless they can call in to their aid a multitude of freeholders in general too great to be found. For instance, if a borough were to consist of 5000 Protestant inhabitants, entitled and accustomed to vote; no matter, they shall be extinguished unless they likewise have within their precints 70 or 100 resident voters, qualified according to this act, which no borough in Ireland has, and which few ever would have. But it effects a new creation to supply this general massacre; it confers a right to vote for those boroughs to others. To whom? To frecholders: persons who were entitled to vote for other members before. It is true, amongst those a class of freeholders is incorporated, (new indeed to the constitution) freeholders on terms for years; but the freehold required is of so large amount that their num bers will be small. Now let me ask, is it a plan to increase the number of your representatives? No, Sir, to diminish it! In the first instance, it decays and depopulates every borough, and almost every city in the kingdom. For I do believe not one of them contains within its precincts 100 voters qualified and registered according to this bill. I have heard of a clause of redemption for them. I only know what I see, and I see no such thing in this bill; and if such clause or schedule were inserted, it would, on the principle of the bill, impose conditions that must for ever exclude several of them from restoration.

And here I lament the destiny, though I admire the virtue of the town of Newry, who petitioned for this reform. With their 12,000 inhabitants, all entitled, if they were Protestants, to vote for members, yet they are all disfranchised unless they also contain within their precincts, 100 of another sort of voters, qualified according to this bill. (He applied the principle and effects to Drogheda, Waterford, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, &c. and concluded with the borough of Dungannon.) And here let me lament the fate of poor Dungannon, at once the pride and the reproach of her sons; Dungannon so late the centre of government, the head of legislation, the seat of empire, unless you have within your precincts (which I am sure you have not) 100 voters qualified according to this bill, you are decayed, depopulated, and extinct. Will you not spare this town on

account of the righteous people that were found therein? I know not whether you have a redemption in store, but I know your redemption is not to be found in the bill on your table. What then can the friends of this bill, (if any such there be) what can they say of it? They cannot say it is a bill for an equal representation of the people. A bill for a more equal representation of the people, a bill for the more equal representation of property, a bill to widen the basis of legislation, to encrease the number of electors, to encrease the number of representatives: No such thing! quite the reverse! In the name of heaven what is its tendency? Is it a reform on any one settled principle? Does it, or would it correct any one abuse? No, Sir, it is nothing but alteration; a transfer of election influence from one set of men to another, which would produce two or three years contest and confusion, and then, by corruption or compromise, the dominion would settle with the most powerful of the neighbourhood. The power would change hands, but the exercise of it would be the same. And is it for this mighty benefit that the ancient habits of the constitution are to be changed? For this your country is to be visited by jubilee of licentiousness, a saturnalia of anarchy for a few years, before it reposes again in the abuses you now complain of. Yet this is the great arcanum, the sacred mystery sent abroad, like the miracles of Mahomet assisted by the sword, from the north to the south, from the east to the west, to subdue the obdurate, and multiply subscribers to the true faith. I do not mean the least disrespect to any man in what I say of this plan of reform. I speak as I think of it. I think it all confusion and danger, and nothing else. And it shews me into what inconsistencies even wise men will fall when they attempt a reform, where reformation is unnecessary, what insupportable difficulties they encounter in an attempt to new model a constitution which has stood for centuries the admiration and envy of the world, and distinguished from all others by having preserved civil liberty on the earth at this day. Under those opinions, and with this veneration for the constitution, I will not so far admit its defects as to go into a committee to amend it. I will not carry into a committee this chaos of rude materials, out of which to create a new constitution, when I have one already formed so competent to human happiness. I will not go paragraph by paragraph through a plan of alteration, where alteration is not necessary. I will not keep the public mind longer in a state of suspence between free government and fruitless speculation, but endeavour to rescue public tranquillity from the designs or delusions of the visionary, the rash,

and the restless.

Much has been said, and much has been inferred concerning the petitions which are displayed on your table; but when gen

tlemen talk of those petitions, they forget that there are between two and three millions of inhabitants in this country. There are several petitions on your table for a reform, some against it. I have no doubt but the majority of your petitions is in favour of reform, because innovation is ever the most active. But it matters not on which side the majority lies; take them all together, they are but as a drop of water to the ocean of your population; they are as a unit in comparison to the numbers of your people. And if those persons, however respectable, petition for any great innovation, you have no right to conclude the multitude on the suggestion of the few; and even if it were possible to suppose (which it is not) that a majority of the people petitioned for an alteration of the constitution intrusted to you, you have not a right to comply; you have not, in that case, a right to indulge their desires, or inflict on them the accomplishment of their wishes. If you comply in what you think a public injury, you are an accomplice in the injury, and betray the interest of the people on the bribe of their own favours.

It is to be lamented by every man, who feels for the honour and the happiness of this country, that after the reputation we have acquired and the benefits we have obtained; acquisitions, limited only by the bounds of our own demands, and adequate to every degree of human happiness; we should offer our enemies a pretext for charging us with a light, an inconstant, and restless character; as if the accomplishment of our wishes was but the beginning of our discontents, and unlimited demand the offspring of unlimited concession; that we were falling under the description Montesquieu gives of a people unworthy of liberty;

"A people grown impatient of the power they have delegated, "desirous to do every thing themselves, debate for the senate, "execute for the magistrate, and decide for the judges." That having obtained the best constitution in the world, we had not the patience to try it for one session of parliament; but in contempt of the high legislative assemblies, resolved ourselves in five hundred little parliaments in every corner of the kingdom, where we voted that constitution an unalterable grievance, and called aloud for a new one.

Were I at liberty to remonstrate with my countrymen, whom I love, I would ask them, do you enjoy freedom? They must answer in the affirmative. Have you commerce? Undoubted as the ocean that surrounds you. Are you in possession of all the blessings that can flow from the best and freest government? You are. Is it then wisdom, is it common sense, when you are sure of those, to throw them back into the ocean of uncertainty, commit them to the wilderness of speculation, or hazard

of experiment? Is it wisdom to interrupt your enjoyment of every thing that is valuable, by dreams of something more free than freedom, more desirable than happiness? The lowest man in the community has wisdom enough to feel the force of this maxim; “When you are well, keep yourselves so." But there is not a philosopher in the nation wise enough to say, what would be the consequence of a change: neither Solon, nor Lycurgus, nor Plato, nor Locke, nor Sidney, if they were alive, would hazard a conjecture as to the effects on the constitution. If you were to adopt any one of those plans which have been offered to you, they might make a democracy, they might make an aristocracy, they might encrease the power of the crown, they might make any thing but the constitution of England; yet every man in the community, the gentleman and the artificer, the learned and the unlearned, the man who can read, and the man who cannot, are all alike ready to undertake the task of constitutionmaking; or, if any of them should happen not to have leisure from the shuttle or the plough, they have only to say, "we "entirely agree in the plan of reform digested and agreed on by "the grand national convention." And there is a constitution ready made to their hands. I do not say our constitution, the work only of human wisdom, is without defect; but there is an inherent strength in it, that has in all convulsions produced remedies for its evils and controls for its excesses; and through many revolutions has maintained liberty to this day. Now you have got it do not throw it away; condescend to enjoy and be happy; your country wants improvement; your constitution does not; cultivate the one, and you will be sure to enjoy the other. But if you grow discontented with your form of government, and are distracted about new schemes and new systems, you will be dupes of designing men in your own country, and strangers will not come near you. Amidst your controversies and your arms, the stranger would not know where to find the laws that are to be his protection; and you may find, perhaps too late, that you have been cheated of your happiness; you will be thought an unreasonable, and you will feel yourselves an unfortunate people; a people whom commerce could not enrich, and whom freedom could not satisfy.

No. LXXII.

THE SPEECHES OF MR. GRATTAN AND MR. BERESFORD ON THE REVENUES OF IRELAND....P. 78.

MR. GRATTAN began with observing, though the interference of a person utterly unconnected with revenue matters, in that department which was so ably administered by the present commissioners, might have somewhat of an invidious aspect, yet he was happy to declare that those gentlemen had not viewed it in that light, but had with the utmost alacrity given him every possible assistance, in promoting the object for which the committee was appointed and it appeared to him throughout, that they had acted not only honourably and diligently, but with a laudable ambition to distinguish themselves in the faithful discharge of the high trust reposed in them. He therefore desired to be considered as not imputing the smallest fault or applying the least censure to those gentlemen, while he endeavoured to rectify some errors and abuses, that in a succession of many years, and under different boards, had found way into the revenue establishment. Having said this, in justification of the present commissioners, to whom he declared no blame was imputable,

He proceeded to state the expence of collecting the revenue at two periods, viz. 1758 and 1783.

In 1758, he stated the expence of collecting to have

In the latter period, he allowed that

an expence incurred by the new custom-house was included; but deducting that expence, the expence of collecting amounted to

£. 81,000

180,000

23,000

157,000

The increase of collecting, he said, did not arise from the increase of articles taxed, or any necessity of adding to the number of officers employed in collecting, as was obvious to any one who would consider that most of the new taxes were only additional duties on articles heretofore taxed; and it was as easy for an officer to receive two shillings as one on any article; therefore that the increase of expence arose from the increase of salaries, he thought might very fairly be presumed.

In the year 1758, the expence of collecting, he said, was about 13 per cent. at present it is 16.